Cyntoia Brown and the quality of mercy

By Carl M. Cannon | Orange County Register PUBLISHED: January 12, 2019 at 11:54 am | UPDATED: January 12, 2019 at 11:55 am On a warm Tennessee night 14 ½ years ago, Johnny Michael Allen took a fateful drive. A 43-year-old Nashville real estate agent and youth pastor, Allen was cruising town in his white Ford F-150 pickup. Although divorced, he had a steady girlfriend, Nancy Liker, whom he’d originally planned to see that evening, a Friday. A conflict arose, so she canceled, but drove the next morning, she drove to Johnny’s house. Not seeing his truck, she left –meaning she wasn’t the one to find his body. At 11 p.m. Friday, Allen had driven past a Sonic Drive-In on Murfreesboro Pike when he spotted Cyntoia Brown. Cyntoia would tell arresting officers that she was 19 years old, so it’s reasonable to assume she told Allen the same thing. Actually, she was a 16-year-old runaway from Clarksville, Tenn., who’d fallen in with a bad crowd. She was living in a motel with a 24-year-old drug dealer who beat her and forced her to have sex with him and others. In the days to come, Cyntoia would provide varied accounts about what happened. Some of it was lies, some was true. A few facts she didn’t deviate from: She said Allen took her to the Sonic, then to his home, located about a mile away, where they ate dinner and watched television. She once said Allen talked to her about straightening… [Read full story]